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“I was after a different sound and as well as a different way of working when forming the idea for 'Love Is Not Pop'. The songs were mostly written during a stay in Paris in October last year and it was around this time I got in touch with Rasmus Hägg from the Swedish duo Studio. I've been a huge fan of Studio ever since I heard their early releases and me and Rasmus had been talking about doing something together before but time had never really been on our side - until now. The initial idea was actually for him to make a remix of one of the songs on the album but after having given the whole thing some thought both he and I thought it would be even more interesting and challenging to have him co-produce it together with me. We had long talks about the sound and feel of the album. I knew I was after the bassy and percussive mystic groove that is one of Rasmus specialities and I explained to him that I was ready to let him just do his thing. Funnily enough I had just caught him in the making of his solo album and he couldn't stop talking about using acoustic guitars and live drums. Rasmus had just started playing drums and really wanted to use live drums only on the record. After hearing his first recordings it didn't take him long to convince me it was a great idea. Rasmus plays all guitars, bass and drums on the record. It's beautiful, how we'd met in a time where both of us were looking for something new, something different than what we'd done before. It just happened ...
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This compilation explains better than anything else why we started Licking Fingers in the first place. (Well, technically in second place, as our first motif was purely egoistical; we had formed a band called The Concretes and we needed a way to get our albums onto Scandinavian store shelves.) It became very clear at an early stage that we weren’t alone in our search for a nice, warm home – with high ceilings, an ocean view, fabulous taste in music and interior decoration. But you don’t want just anyone to move in with you (as sir Alec McGuiness made
perfectly clear in ‘Ladykillers’ way back in 1955) so it took us a while to unlock those gates.
We are so happy we did. The first person to stroll in was Frida Hyvönen, pointing six very muscular and handsome young boys in the direction of the Licking Fingers banquet room, giving them careful instructions not to damage her grand piano in any way whatsoever had they the desire to live to see their 20th birthday. In her other hand she was carrying ten perfect pop songs, carved in ivory and neatly folded in a little bundle she referred to as ‘Until Death Comes’. That was in 2004. Three years later there’s another knock on the door. Enter the most adorable dog (dawg?) we’ve ever seen. And curiously, although she was wearing a very stylish collar, she appeared to be homeless. She was El Perro del Mar and she was looking for shelter.
We couldn’t possibly put in to words how proud we are to house two such marvellous talents. (Not...
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I wanted to make something as unfashionable as an album in the classic sense of the word – in terms of its composition and the idea of a theme. The theme itself was initially something as simple yet complex as heaven and it led me into a wide and seemingly endless search for a means, a language in which to express myself. Although during this time I was, even though I mostly didn't realize it, following a certain train of thought – that of love, grief and loss, solace and hope, deepest despair and wildest childish euphoria – to the lowest and the highest of heights.
In many ways one could say that 'From the Valley to the Stars' is created out of an intellectual idea – the music turned up only after the language, the literary as well as the harmonic, was created. And at that moment it was as if the music did not belong to me. As if someone else had written it. In some strange way I felt as if it had existed all along. Somewhere. In the ground? In the heavens? Just like when you start humming a tune you're not sure where you picked up or where you heard it before. This is the way I think that which we often call 'folk music' works – like timeless melodies striking something deep within us; from deep down in the soil, from high up in the sky.
Now I am not saying that my idea was to make folk music, but I was searching for that timelessness; the grand mystery of it all that has been ringing within our hearts since the beginning of time. I wanted to make something that in its...
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How Did We Forget is the first single taken from El Perro del Mar's forthcoming album From the Valley to the Stars. The b-side is the wonderful and exclusive You Hit Me (It's a Crying Shame).
